Monster
by AnnaCromwell
Summary: I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed, Get along with the voices inside of my head, You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath, And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy. Well, that's nothing.


**Warning: I am NOT promoting domestic violence here. Please understand that.**

_I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed_  
_Get along with the voices inside of my head_  
_You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath_  
_And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy  
_

_Well, that's nothing  
_

Everyone thought she was insane. Even Holly said Annabeth was insane to be with him. He would never let her live. But then, she never listened. After all, Artemis Fowl II, intellectual narcissist of the millennium was her husband. Artemis was possessive, overprotective, billionaire, a genius and loved her more than anyone could. A genius for a genius. What more could she ask for?

A human for a husband.**_  
_**

Artemis was a perfect human when you saw him, but she him what he was in reality. His success had done him good, but often jealousy got the better of him. Annabeth winning her second Nobel in place of him made him go off the deep end, and he had begun to drink heavily. One night he lost control.

"Annabeth?" he called for her in a drunken stupor.

"Yes?" she replied. She was in their room.

"Come here," he asked her, standing at the door. He pulled her close and kissed her. She could taste fresh vodka on his lips.

"Artemis, you're drunk. Please come and sleep," she entreated.

"My Nobel project is hung," he replied, sounding hurt.

"Artemis, you need sleep. I didn't do this when I was working."

"You stayed up for four days straight."

"Artemis, I wasn't drunk. You are, and you need sleep more than anything else."

"You're no one to dictate what I do."

"I'm telling you what is right."

"Don't you dare correct me," he said and pushed her.

"That is my duty," she replied firmly, shaken by his behaviour. He'd never done this before.

"Your duty is to only complement me, and you do that by being who you are."

"Arty, please. Listen to me."

"Why should I when you say nothing which is correct?"

"I am. Try to see it."

"I need no one to show me that. I'm a smart man and I know what I'm doing."

"You're being an intellectual narcissist, nothing else."

"What did you say?" he said, angry now.

"You're being an intellectual narcissist, nothing else. A D'Arviting intellectual narcissist."

"How dare you," he said and slapped her hard, fingers leaving prints on her cheek. She looked up, tears in her eyes. He had slapped her once before, but never this hard.

"What is wrong with you?" she asked, now pleading.

"Stop being this control freak self of yourself. Stop trying to control me," he replied.

"I'm not. You're being obstinate."

"I shouldn't have married you, Cromwell," he said, hitting her again on her cheek. Annabeth was being battered by her husband, and she didn't say a word. She was crazy, that was it. And today he used her maiden name. The last time she heard it from his lips was when he proposed for marriage. How the moment was a stark contrast from the one she was going through.

"Wh-what?" she said, shaken thoroughly now. She was crying then. Artemis simply went off to his study and went down to work. She cried till she slept off, remembering Holly's words when she told of the previous incident.

_"Annabeth, please. You shouldn't be going through this. Take him to a doctor. Now."_

She hadn't listened, saying how he would get better, and cried harder thinking of that. Soon she slept off, and when Artemis came back, fully in his senses, he was horrified to see what he had done to the lady who mattered to him more than his own life. She was sleeping with her head resting by the bedside, sitting on the floor. Her face was slightly red even then, when six hours had passed from the incident. And the marks hadn't gone. He broke down, seeing the fiend, the monster he had been to her 360 minutes back. He looked at his hands, bleeding because he had broken a glass in his rage and now had pressed the broken shard fiercely by his palms. It was six in the morning, and she was deep in sleep. Besides, why would she help the man who had done this to her? He tried to open the drawer with his hands, but they bled faster.

"Ah," he winced, trying to open it. She heard the sound and woke up. Seeing his palms, blood flowing like water from them, she quickly took out the box and cleaned, sterilised and dressed the wound. Artemis Fowl II, 28 years old, still winced and whined like a ten year old being injected with a vaccine.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, tears flowing down.

"What are you talking about?" she asked him.

"Why are you so good to me? Why are you being the angel to me?"

"I'm doing what someone would do when the person hurt in front of them is the one whom they love," she gently replied.

"How can you love me after all I've done? I've humiliated, abused, even battered you, then how can you still love me?"

"I love you and will still, no matter what you do, because I know that I can change you and that you will if I try. And I am trying."

"How can you love a monster like me?"

"This is a phase which will pass very, very soon. I'll make it go."

"I don't know what to say. I've been awful to you in the past three months, and you still haven't called the cops on me."

"Because there was no need. This is going, and I see it leave. I know your parents' demise makes you hate life now, and losing to others makes it worse, but I'm a psychologist who'll put you straight, because I'm in love with my patient."

"How?"

"Just follow what I say."

"I'll do anything you tell me. I don't want to lose anyone I love, especially now. You're my life; how can I hurt you?" he said, her face in his hands.

"Stop drinking. That's it." He got up, took her by the hand, and took out the only bottle of liquor left at home. He had finished the rest. Taking a lighter from the kitchen, he went in the backyard, took the bottle, put it in a fire-proof box and set the spirit afire, holding her close. The fire burned like an uncontrolled blaze, lighting up the dark Irish sky

"The fire is proof that I will never, ever touch it again. Because I know it will kill what I value more than myself. Sorry for all that I've done to you, and I will make sure that I'll never, ever hurt my love in any way. You will never see this face of mine," he told her, conviction in his eyes and words. She softly kissed him, forgetting all he had done. She'd triumphed and that was what mattered. His brothers watched from the back.

"She did what we couldn't, Beckett. What we couldn't," Myles said. Butler watched, his belief reaffirmed in the girl in front of him in whom he saw his late mistress, late Angeline Fowl, who changed her husband and son. She was a genius and a patient, tolerant lady, but more than that, she was a woman of utter determination and faith. She knew she'd change him, and she had.

Today, Artemis Fowl III and Alexandra Fowl made history by becoming the youngest to ever receive the Nobel Prize. Their proud parents watched the two ascend the dais and take the prize. At the age of thirty-nine, Artemis and Annabeth were parents of Nobel laureates, laureates themselves and the most successful business empire heads ever. At the dinner they hosted, Artemis saw a close friend of his drink, and went over. Annabeth face subsided in a gloom, but that was only momentary, for after that the man didn't even look at the glass, Artemis told him something. She smiled seeing how her husband had changed for good, and that it was going to stay the same. But she would never, ever forget that night when he had hit her, and when she had seen the demon in Artemis Fowl.

The monster she never wanted to face again.

_I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed_  
_Get along with the voices inside of my head_  
_You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath_  
_And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy _

_Well, that's nothing _

**_Thanks to Eminem and Rihanna for the song and for making me see that there's a monster in all of us, even the ones who seem the sanest. In fact, the darkest and the most violent personas lie beneath the sanest and the most controlled features of all._**


End file.
